All right, Santa Barbara get it together----Now the rest of us need to get with the program! I've been taking my own bags (first it was reused Vons paper bags) for more than 20 years. No big deal.

People: take your own bags. It's easy. So easy.

COMMENT 340503

2012-11-08 09:04 AM

Total greenwashing nonsense. This ban unfairly targets the elderly, the handicapped, and the low income and provides no measurable environmental benefits, confirmed. Instead of a paper recyclable bag they now give you a bag shipped from overseas that has far more impact on the environment than a paper one. Feel good legislation that only hurts the residents and visitors of Carp. It is just matter of time before the ban is overturned. This ban was not favored by a majority of folks here in Carp and the majority will be heard.

COMMENT 340505P

2012-11-08 09:08 AM

501P, do whatever YOU want, but don't force it on everyone else. FYI, paper bags aren't great for the environment either and use a lot more resources than plastic.

I use minimal plastic bags and reuse them for pet waste, among a million other things. These bags are now recyclable since SB switched to Marborg only, unlike a couple years ago.

Single-use bags by whose definition??? Mine are NEVER used only once, neither are most of the people I know. It's a rule with self-riteous undertones at best.

COMMENT 340509P

2012-11-08 09:11 AM

Never understood why paper bags are included in this ban. Paper bags are both reusable and recycleable. Can we please have people involved with these laws that have a functioning thought process?

COMMENT 340515

2012-11-08 09:15 AM

So no paper OR plastic at all? What happens when people from out of town stop in for something? They are forced to purchase bags or carry their groceries one by one?

This is LUNACY!

I re-use my paper and plastic bags CONSTANTLY. Don't most people?

COMMENT 340526P

2012-11-08 09:30 AM

I normally use the Vons in Ojai. Since they stopped providing plastic bags and charging for paper I have begun using "reuseable bags." I put the quotes in because they haven't lasted more than a few trips to the store before a tear appears or a handle breaks off and we have to get another one. The baggers believe that since they aren't plastic they can overfill them? They do this with paper bags as well. The other thing we are doing which we never did before is purchasing small and medium garbage bags. We use the small ones for the litter box and the medium for bathroom and laundry room trash. Both of these used to be covered by the plastic bags we brought home from the store. So now we are throwing away "reusable bags" and plastic bags that we purchase.

COMMENT 340527

2012-11-08 09:30 AM

Man, I guess no one here ever shopped at Costco. It's not that huge a deal.I carry my own bags, but I frequently forget them, too. Which suits me fine, considering how often I need the plastic bags. I'm in support of the ban, but recognize that I'll have to start buying bags to put in my bathroom trash can and take the recycling down. NBD. I find it kinda amazing how people are so up in arms over something that was free. Dude. You were getting stuff FOR FREE. From a company that had to buy it. To give it to you free. This isn't like free beach access being taken away people, it's a plastic frickin' bag.

COMMENT 340532

2012-11-08 09:33 AM

Costco provides boxes instead of bags.

COMMENT 340534

2012-11-08 09:36 AM

I wonder how this will work out for tourists. I use reusable bags in SB, but not when I am on vacation.

COMMENT 340505P

2012-11-08 09:42 AM

That's the point, 527. Why should government be able to tell companies that WANT to give people plastic bags, that they aren't allowed to? City councils have picked this issue up and run it into the ground with ridiculousness over and over and over, WITHOUT public majority support when they are supposed to be serving the public, not doing what they don't want. Here we are again.

COMMENT 340526P

2012-11-08 09:43 AM

527-You missed the point of my post. I am not complaining about having to buy the plastic bags. I can certainly afford to purchase bags. My point is the ban has done nothing to eliminate my use of plastic bags and I now throw away the reusable ones as well. No whining going on, simply an observation. But please continue your rant if you must. Sincerely, 526P

COMMENT 340544

2012-11-08 09:44 AM

I'm thinking stores may lose some business just becausethere are some who will likely refuse to go along with all this political correctness and will go elsewhere.

COMMENT 340553

2012-11-08 10:01 AM

The government is telling the (mostly corporations, not individually owned) businesses what THE PEOPLE have said they want.

The PEOPLE OF CARPINTERIA have told their LOCAL GOVERNMENT that WE WANT LESS WASTE.

We have told the LOCAL GOVERNMENT that WE WANT LESS POLLUTION.

We, the PEOPLE OF CARPINTERIA have told our LOCAL GOVERNMENT that we want LESS TRASH ON OUR BEACH.

COMMENT 340556

2012-11-08 10:04 AM

I went to Vons in Goleta last night - they took what was in a single hand basket and put it into 6 plastic bags...

Not only was this 4 too many. Then two of the bags tore and spilled in my car rendering them useless for anything but the trash.

one single paper bag was all that was needed. Instead I ended up with 6 bags... worthless, waste.

To hear the people get up in arms over something so silly, so minor, only proves that in our current culture the sense of community is long since gone - its all about the individual. We've become a society that lacks all sense of common decency and courtesy and reading through this post affirms that we have a large portion of these people living among us...whether its this particular issue or the way people drive and act towards each other. Its endemic and it sucks and its the main reason our city, state and country are falling apart. No common decency or concern.

COMMENT 340557

2012-11-08 10:05 AM

I travel with my chico bags. I've had them for so many years and they are indestructible!

COMMENT 340558

2012-11-08 10:09 AM

340527 - Who says the plastic bags are free? They are "free" in the same way that you get your groceries rang up, bagged, and carried to your car for free. You get the lighting for free. Parking is free. They will slice deli meat for you for free. The produce guys will cut a cabbage in half for you for free. Have a question where an item is? They will lead you by the hand and show you where it is for free. Want to buy a lot of wine? They give you a cardboard carrier for free.

None of it is "free". All of it is cost-averaged into the price of the things they sell.

COMMENT 340559

2012-11-08 10:12 AM

Great news. Now i only buy what i can carry in my hands out of the store! saves money

COMMENT 340562

2012-11-08 10:15 AM

We take an hour long walk each morning. Along the walk we collect trash, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard boxes, etc. We collect them into plastic bags and deposit the collection in our weekly garbage. Without the free plastic grocery bags we would just let the garbage accumulate. I'm convinced that a ban on plastic bags will be counter productive. Still the do-gooders have loud voices.

EMUWREN1

2012-11-08 10:15 AM

Okay. Pay attention: The thin, white plastic bags you receive at stores are NOT FREE. You know the adage, "Nothing in life is free?" Well, you are paying for those bags, as they are added into the cost of the products you buy. The stores are not going to provide these bags to you at no cost to themselves---duh.

There are many countries that have banned the use of plastic bags: China being one of those countries. The reason you should take your own bags is to help keep plastic out of our oceans and landfills and countryside. Which of you has never seen a plastic bag skittering down the street? Or never seen a plastic bag floating down at the Harbor? Or seen a plastic bag stuck in the Highway landscaping?

Plastic bags are a bane: they kill sea mammals, who ingest them (thinking the bags are jellyfish). These bags don't break down in the soil or oceans----the plastic simply shreds into smaller and smaller bits.

Instead of complaining about your inconvenience, you could do what I do: take sturdy cotton bags with you to the store. "Enviro Sac" is one company that sells wonderfully sturdy (each bag holds up to 40 lbs) and long lasting bags. And they are good-looking bags, too.

You can pat yourselves on the back all you want, touting how you reuse your bags. Using one bag again one time is not helping keep these bags out of our environment. Why not lose the guilt over using plastic and be creative? Find new ways to line your trash bins. How did we ever survive without these plastic bags, years ago? It is a manufactured need.

I could go on and on, but suggest instead that you look online to see why use of plastic grocery/shopping bags is bad for all of us. AND, I think European visitors to our shores already know how to bring their own bags, as they have been doing it for decades.

COMMENT 340564

2012-11-08 10:16 AM

All you have to do it trace the unintended consequences backwards to see where this will go in the future. A couple decades ago, the nuts were all whining about how paper bags were endangering the spotted owl (fill in your own useless creature here), so we all switched to thin, cheap and COMPLETELY REUSABLE AND RECYCLABLE plastic bags. Now they are banning those and we'll all be using unrecyclable, lead laden Chinese junk (all the while buying thick, premium trash bags to line our bathroom cans) until the epidemic of ecoli and melamine poisoning hits, then I guess we'll just have to get all our state approved organic human chow delivered by a fine union government employee.

COMMENT 340501P

2012-11-08 10:27 AM

First person to comment, back again. If you read my post I write that I "first used Vons paper bags," as my reusable bags.

Then, in 1990, I participated in a beach cleanup, and received my first reusable cotton bag. I still have it and still use it.

My family and I haven't used plastic grocery bags in years. We always take our own. It is laughably easy, once you make up your mind to become part of the solution.

You don't need to buy plastic bags. Plastic bags are everywhere around us now. You can reuse the plastic bags your bread comes in, the bags you get with your delivered newspapers, the bags that you used for your kids' sandwiches, the bags you get with your online purchases----the list is endless: use those for poop pickup and bigger ones to line bottom of your kitchen bin.

If kitchen scraps are a problem, start a compost (so many sites now sell smaller rotating compost bins!). Stop wanking about the inconvenience (heavens to Betsy!) and be more conscientious about getting unnecessary and polluting plastic out of your lives.

COMMENT 340501P

2012-11-08 10:31 AM

562: OR, you could purchase a few sturdier plastic trash bags, carry those in a pocket and, after you finish getting the trash off the streets, WASH & REUSE the same bag to pickup trash over and over and over again. So simple.

COMMENT 340505P

2012-11-08 10:41 AM

553, if you honestly think that if this ban came down to a public vote that it would pass, you are sorely, sorely mistaken. This is NOT what the people what, this is what the city government wants because it makes them look better. Politics suck, and they're clouding your judgment.

COMMENT 340580P

2012-11-08 10:54 AM

LOVE YOU CARPINTERIA! I walk on the beach every day and inevitably pick up at least one plastic bag! Come on, folks, start caring! We are all in this together!

COMMENT 340581

2012-11-08 10:58 AM

When was the last time someone received a littlering ticket for tossing a bag in the street? I'm guessing NEVER.

how about handing out some tickets if these bags are littered all over the place?

COMMENT 340553

2012-11-08 11:40 AM

I know who's sore and it isn't my researched knowledge.

What's sore are individuals who feel that their world is shifting beneath their feet and getting upset over the changes that need to be made and really have little to no impact on their daily business (unless, of course, they're in the petroleum industry, or plastic bag salesmen).

What is with the faux worry about what the tourists will do? The tourists will do what they need to do: If they want to carry things out in a bag, they'll BUY A BAG. Is this not what we're supposed to do to tourists, anyway? We're supposed to TAKE THEIR MONEY.

And people who live here are COMPLAINING about that?

WTF did I wake up in Bizarro world?

COMMENT 340598P

2012-11-08 12:11 PM

562 - Many thanks to the two of you for picking up all that debris. What a wonderful contribution to community you are making...and what a productive walk you take!

I hope you will feel inspired, even if it ends up there is some small cost to you, to find other sources to continue your valuable work.

Sincere thanks for your inspiration...

COMMENT 340526P

2012-11-08 12:15 PM

I agree the tourists probably won't care too much. They are here to spend money, why not charge them for bags. I have plenty or "reusable bags" in my trunk. When we go shopping it is usually at least one full basket, sometimes two, so we need a lot of bags. I have never seen a bread bag that could be used for a trash can liner, not sure what kind of bread you eat. I do not send my children to school with sandwiches in plastic bags and they wouldn't come back if I did. I can just imagine the look on their faces if I actually asked them to bring the bags back home. No these are not solutions. I use reuseable lunch bags and sandwich containers and I buy garbage bags for garbage cans and for picking up pet waste. I will not compost anything, I do not have the knowledge or the desire to do so; nor do I have anything to use the compost for after it is complete. I understand some of you feel very stongly about this ban on the evil plastic bag but it will not eliminate the use of plastic bags. Valiant effort on you part though.

COMMENT 340600

2012-11-08 12:16 PM

In the land of the free, why do we need the government to tell us what type of bag we can exchange with the grocery store?

COMMENT 340618P

2012-11-08 12:39 PM

Can I get free groceries too?

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-08 12:57 PM

People must not look at the side of the freeways very much. Bags and trash galore if you go up the coast.

I feel like I'm reading the princess and the pea with some of these ridiculous complaints.

COMMENT 340628

2012-11-08 01:07 PM

The myth that those plastic bags are reusable and recyclable is laughable. Plastic cannot be used for the same purpose- it can only be used for something that requires less strength and integrity once it is melted down. Like picnic benches or something. What is the demand for picnic benches? Minimal.

The few stories I've heard about the recycling business are really bad. Chopped up soda bottles being sent to asia to be buried in their landfills and the like.

If you think that once you have put your plastic containers into your blue bin then you have saved the planet, you are wrong.

Plus I wonder how all of our ancestors got along without plastic bags for millenia? From the comments here life for them must have been nasty, brutish, and short.

AMARA

2012-11-08 01:16 PM

I have just begun keeping some reusable bags in my car in order to try and remember to take them in when I go. However, I still prefer to get plastic and paper bags. The reasons? My cats' used litter. If I don't have these, then what the heck do I do with it until trash day. I don't want to toss a bunch of clumped sand (and feces) into the trash can. It would likely fall all over the place when the trash collectors came to empty it. So ... any ideas?

COMMENT 340639

2012-11-08 01:21 PM

340562 - my daily walk takes me past a large apartment complex where street parking is popular. Those two blocks are always riddled with trash. As a reusable bag person, about once a week or so I simply take a plastic kitchen trash bag with me to pick up the trash. I buy the trash bags for the can in our kitchen. The plastic bags from grocery stores don't fit in our can so they are worthless to me in a "reusable" way. But I got over the single use plastic bags years ago. And yes, my reusable bags go in the laundry for frequent washes, so stop with the whole "your bags have germs" argument, thanks. For walker and do-gooder 340562 I hope you continue picking up trash, your neighborhood and environment is a better place because of you. And buying trash bags is very easy to do. Kudos to your service.

COMMENT 340646

2012-11-08 01:34 PM

Okay, so you go to the store for a couple of items and you bring your reusable bag with you. Only you get to aisle 3 and you discover they've got Campbell's soup on sale for a buck a can and you want to stock up. And then you see on aisle 7 that Kellogg's cereal is on sale and you want three boxes. What then? Under the new rules, you have to BUY yet another reusable bag or two.

So what do you do? Take eight or nine reusable bags with you every time you shop, lest you be like most people and leave the supermarket with more purchases than you'd intended? Or do you just continue giving the store a buck a bag every time you buy more than you thought you would?

This whole bag ban is beyond stupid. When you think of what a miniscule number of these bags wind up as litter, versus how many millions of them are out there in general circulation, it would seem that the bag ban is just hysterical knee-jerk overreaction.

I have a stockpile of dozens, if not hundreds, of plastic bags that I keep forgetting to return to Ralphs for recycling. When the stupid bag ban comes to Santa Barbara, which it surely will, I'll simply take a handful of those bags to the store with me whenever I shop. Unlike the "reusable" bags, you can carry eight or ten of them in your pockets.

COMMENT 340648

2012-11-08 01:36 PM

Yes, the millions of bags that are in general circulation on beaches, in the ocean, on the sides of our highways, filling up landfills... They're in general circulation alright.

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-08 01:43 PM

Rex,

Get a cart, fill it up, go to checkstand, pay, put items back in cart, take to car, put items in trunk.

If I can fit everything in my backpack when I ride my bike to the store, I'm sure you can figure out how to get the items from point A in the store to point B in your car's trunk.

COMMENT 340558

2012-11-08 01:44 PM

How many cans/bottles with a CRV do you see littering the roads/beaches? Not many, because there are hundreds if not thousands of people collecting them for the cash.

Put a penny CRV on each of these plastic bags and the problem of them getting eaten by fish will virtually disappear.

And 340628, you are wrong. Most plastic is infinitely recyclable.

EMUWREN1

2012-11-08 01:52 PM

Oh, 648. I like you. A lot.

COMMENT 340501P

2012-11-08 01:58 PM

@657 You need to read up more on the subject of recycling of plastics.

Also: Plastic bags have a tendency to go where the wind blows. If you think bags won't end up in the ocean or creeks or sloughs or at local lakes just because people look to collect them . . . you need to rethink that supposition.

AMARA

2012-11-08 02:03 PM

641, thank you for the snarky comment. I did not find it overly helpful. It was a serious question and not an attempt "to stir things up." (That doesn't interest me.)

Yes, I was serious. Plastic is plastic. If the reason for not using the market bags is to cut down on using plastic, then I achieve nothing by buying different plastic bags because I don't currently use plastic trash bags.

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-08 02:16 PM

The issue with plastic recyling is the fact that the process does more harm than good. Energy is not free, and plastic, metal, paper, cardboard and glass recyling certainly don't just happen spontaneously. It takes energy to create, destroy, and repurpose. The only way to get around this is to reuse. A think layer of plastic can only be reused a few times before becoming a useless piece of plastic that takes years to fully decompose.

657: There are plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans everywhere, a deposit won't change a thing.

COMMENT 340515

2012-11-08 02:20 PM

668 - so do we just stop recycling plastic because it takes energy? Seriously, I'm curious. Is the goal to completely get rid of plastics altogether or what?

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-08 03:00 PM

675: I think plastic is great for certain things. That's why it's great as a vessel for my sandwich at lunch. That being said, I don't very well throw the rubbermaid container into the recycler, expecting someone to wave a wand over it, making it nice and new without any consequence. Recycling endlessly so the customer can have a new bag every time they buy a single item is waste, plain and simple. Recycling something after it received an acceptable amount of use is another situation entirely.

People are worked up because it's a free thing, and people like free things. Once you take them away, they think they are owed something.

It really hasn't mattered in the past, as the plastic in question was on a much smaller scale. Now, with the population as large as it is, each person's pollutants make a much larger problem collectively. Increased industrial efficiency is no excuse to be wasteful.

COMMENT 340691

2012-11-08 03:05 PM

@Amara - I agree completely with you. I have a dog that I pick up after with recycled plastic bags I collect from the grocery store. I feel like the idea of buying MORE plastic bags because they are banned isn't even just a simple added cost for me, it's a frustration because they are new bags that are now being used for a landfill. Poop needs a plastic bag, sorry folks. Paper is messy and you can't pick it up. The fact that one doggie or kitty bag is only half the size of a regular plastic bag doesn't matter to me since it's near impossible to find affordable ones that are made from already recycled plastic material, unlike most grocery bags.

Ultimately, it's a well meaning but not well thought out law. I guess the argument might be made that most people do not re-use plastic bags?

COMMENT 340712P

2012-11-08 04:12 PM

Just go back to paper bags. Double them up and reuse them over and over and over, until they finally are no longer usable and get disposed of (in another paper bag). That's what I've been doing since way before the environmental movement became a movement. I've got cloth reusable bags too, but I use those more at the farmer's markets, as the paper bags work better for groceries.

BTW, I had all my doubled-up paper bags open and ready to refill with my groceries after the "checker" rang them up. Then a bag kid showed up to help. (I usually just bag my own groceries.) He said no one had ever made it that easy before. Using common sense, being considerate, frugal, and planning ahead isn't a new concept. It's just a way of life.

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-08 04:15 PM

691:

Many dog poop bags you can purchase are biodegradable. They are not a large expense by any means and break down much faster than plastic bags.

COMMENT 340691

2012-11-08 04:25 PM

627, I've seen some recycled plastic bags at pet store, but not many and they are often sold out. THey are usually at least three dollars or more over the cost of regular bags. I still say it's cheaper and easier to use post consumer recycled plastic grocery bags, but then I'm on a strict budget, so I pay attention to every dollar. Can I afford them? I'll have to since I'm a responsible pet owner.

But that doesn't address the fact that it's another bag being made to supply a demand that I didn't have before.

COMMENT 340746

2012-11-08 05:33 PM

Instead of calling this a ban on plastic bags.... we should call it what it really is: "The Beacon Tax" None of this would be needed if it was'nt for their $70,000 environmental impact report.

There should be plenty of these wacko studys available for free, why cant we just use one of those?

COMMENT 340757P

2012-11-08 06:03 PM

Not to worry. I'm "importing" plastic bags from outside the area. When friends and family send something or come to visit, they send or bring their saved, plastic bags ... or is that going to be a crime, too?

COMMENT 340618P

2012-11-08 08:17 PM

If only we could recycle people as easily as plastic bags.

COMMENT 340501P

2012-11-08 08:58 PM

It is dismaying to read how many people on this thread are anthropocentric. Truly? All that matters is humans and what humans want?

Where is the concern for our fellow earthly inhabitants and our need to keep our planet healthy? Our planet now suffers from a human population of plague proportions. The least we can do is attempt to keep our abuse of our environment to a minimum.

Every argument I have read herein which supports the continued use of plastic bags rings hollow. Civilization as we know it will not come crashing down if everyone sucks it up and makes a commitment to taking his/her own bags to the markets. Such a small and responsible step to take.

AMARA: To you and others who can't figure out how to dispose of your animals' poop, I suggest you use your computer skills and find a "Doggie Dooley" or a similar in- ground disposal unit, buy it, and make use of it.

You can easily compost your animals' waste. We do it at my house, and it is one way you can "recycle" waste and not deal with having to put it in your trash receptacles.

If you can't use the in-ground system, then put the poop and kitty litter in your empty potato chip bags or cellophane pasta bags or bread bags or fast food paper bags or . . . the list is endless. Tie off these bags, and into the trash with them.

You will be amazed at how little effort it takes to be kinder to the planet. And the knowledge that you are a part of the solution will wash away that sense of guilt that you now have.

COMMENT 340837

2012-11-09 06:06 AM

Carp has become a socialist state. They are anti business and anti growth. Take a look at their stupid city laws they have. Here's a couple: 1. Illegal to smoke anywhere in public. 2. Illegal to fly a remote control airplane at a park when a sporting event is going on. 3. If you pull out of any kind of driveway in carp you MUST treat it as a stop sign or else that's a ticket. 4. You have to have a license for your dog and your bicycle. Does Carp not want tourist anymore?

COMMENT 340558

2012-11-09 06:39 AM

340810P - An in-ground disposal unit is fine if you never walk your dog.

COMMENT 340627

2012-11-09 07:36 AM

837:

How is that socialist? None of those laws you stated have anything to do with economic socialism.

Please stop spouting off ideas of socialist governments without actually understanding what they are.

I find it laughable that you try to equate those laws to an oppressive government. Maybe you should write a book about it, sounds very traumatizing.

COMMENT 340639

2012-11-09 03:16 PM

What did dog and cat owners do for Thousands of years before these "free" grocery bags came into existence just 2 decades ago??? It's not like people evolved so quickly to rely on these bags that we can't unevolve.

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